Begonias in The Belfry
by cherryarachnid
Summary: Spike and Dru spend an unfortunate time in Prague just before their first meeting with Buffy. Drusilla decides she'd like to start a family.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Begonias in the Belfry

Author: cherryarachnid

Feedback: Constructive, please.

Distribution: Contact me first, but I'll probably be okay with it.

Rating: T – may change later, but we'll see.

Spoilers: Probably a few.

Disclaimer: The main characters do not belong to me, obviously.

Author's Note: I have not read EVERYTHING that is canon Buffy, so my apologies if I've stepped on any continuity or story lines. If I have, let me know and I'll see what I can do.

**Spring 1995 - Prague**

"You can't possibly be unhappy already, Love, we've only been here a couple of days." Spike was lounging in the burgundy settee which had been moved away from the enormous window and placed in the center of the opulent room. There were numerous windows in the room, as well as other rooms throughout the old, dusty mansion, but all were decorated with heavy, lined, wine-colored drapes, which had been pulled tightly closed.

In one corner of the spacious sitting room, on a plush sofa, sat an elderly couple, sitting side by side, leaning against one another. Had they been alive still, it would have been endearing. In death, however, it was grisly. Both of them were drawn and pale, completely drained of blood. Their eyes would be forever open in terror.

"You really should have done as I asked and kept them alive so that we could have fed from them a bit, Pet," Spike gestured at the elderly pair. "We're going to have to hunt, now."

"I couldn't help myself, I do love a tea party." She giggled like a young girl - a broken girl - and Spike ignored the barely relevant response, instead, watching Drusilla float across the room, back and forth, swaying, humming to herself. She was lovely. She was also bat guano crazy. He understood her, though, even her most bizarre ramblings. Angelus had always lost his temper at her non-sequeter statements, not having the patience to translate what Spike had learned was often prophecy, or at the very least, a tidbit that came in handy.

Darla had offered her to Angelus because she was a seer and Angelus had tortured her because she had been young, pure and devout, but neither had bothered to take advantage of her gift. It was a relief to be free of both of them, even if it was only a temporary absence. It didn't seem to matter how long they were separated, however, Dru eventually wanted to go back to her "daddy". It turned his stomach.

Spike glowered and upturned a bottle of Jack Daniel's so that the hot liquid slid down his throat. He hadn't found the new Slayer yet and Dru already wanted to move on. He would have to hurry or she would become insistent to the point of insanity. He never worried that she would hurt him, but she would hurt herself or do something that would capture the attention from whom they tried so hard to stay hidden.

While he wasn't afraid to kill and cause a scene, he had learned not to start something that would bring out the torches and pitchforks. He greatly preferred a brawl to a manhunt, he definitely preferred hunter to hunted. A vampire never wanted to be the prey. As predators, it obviously wasn't in their nature. As a result, he had learned to become as discreet as he could, which took an enormous amount of will power on his part. Dru was a completely different story. She would do as he said unless he hurt her feelings or the mood struck her to do something completely different. She was a barely-reigned, chaotic faerie who could cause great damage without thinking of the results... or rather, she reveled in the results that he found so uncomfortable.

"Dru, Love, would you like to go for a hunt? It's nearly dark." Drusilla clapped her tiny, white hands together and hopped up and down, looking very much like a small child in her old fashioned frocks.

"Ooh, goodie, can we visit the children? Our last meal was rather past its prime." She aimed a derisive look at the couple on the couch.

He didn't really care for hunting children. The fight was more fun than the feast to him, so he shrugged and put on a sharp-toothed smile, "I'm going to go hunting for a Slayer, you can go find yourself some veal and we can meet back here for desert." He pulled her to him and kissed her violently, then let her go to pull one of the drapes back carefully. When he saw that the sun had set, he wrapped his dark duster around his shoulders, lit a cigarette and walked out the door into the darkness. Behind him, Drusilla's mouth turned down into a pout.

"Poor Drusilla, always left home with the kiddies while the men go chasing nasty women," she sang, while she pulled on her dark blue cloak that looked like it had been sewn a century prior. Then, she followed Spike into the night.

Spike's information was vague. He had been told, through multiple sources, that the Slayer had come into her powers in Prague. Much like the vampires, who had to die and be brought back as something not quite human, not quite demon, the Slayer would wait for the previous to die, and she would awaken into a demon/human hybrid. Spike often wondered what the mix was and how different the two actually were. He suspected that they were not as different as the Watchers' Counsel would have the little girls believe.

He supposed it didn't matter. It was his fate to kill humans, it was the Slayer's fate to kill vampires, which meant it was their fates to destroy one another. He wandered up and down the dark alleys. There were a few demon bars he would try for information in a little while, but for now, he wanted to see for himself what else was hunting in the dark.

He passed a couple of vampires. They recognized him for what he was and nodded their heads briefly but made no attempt to interact with him. Vampires were not generally very social creatures. When, on the rare occasion, they formed groups, usually from the same lineage, they would stay together for decades or centuries, even when betrayed by one another. His own Aurelius line was proof enough of that. He and Dru had travelled with Angelus and Darla for decades and it was a sport for Angelus to torture and humiliate him, even sleeping with Dru just to hurt him. He thought it was great fun that it _could_ hurt him.

Dru didn't even understand what it did to him but Darla and Angelus thrived off of his pain. It figured that he would be love-sick in life and love-sick in death. He kicked at a beer can that had been left in the gutter and listened to it clang down the street.

It had been decades, and he was still brooding. What a ponce. He heard a scuffling noise up around the next corner and decided he would just grab the first meal he could and go back to the old house. He rounded the corner just in time to see a lithe young girl jamming a wooden stake into a small man's chest. He watched him burst into a cloud of ash.

"Hello there, Slayer," he whispered to himself. He watched her brush the ash from her jeans with a shudder. He nearly laughed, giving himself away. She still wasn't used to the mess. She _was_ new.

He shadowed her for the rest of the night, not too closely, though. He figured she hadn't quite worked out how to use her senses, but he didn't want to test it. He wanted to know where she was, but he wasn't ready to fight her yet. Rather, she wasn't ready to fight him. He craved the challenge. If he just wanted a quick kill, he could grab any girl off the street.


	2. Chapter 2

Title: Begonias in the Belfry

Author: cherryarachnid

Feedback: Constructive, please.

Distribution: Contact me first, but I'll probably be okay with it.

Rating: T – may change later, but we'll see.

Spoilers: Probably a few.

Disclaimer: The main characters do not belong to me, obviously.

Author's Note: I have not read EVERYTHING that is canon Buffy, so my apologies if I've stepped on any continuity or story lines. If I have, let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Spike wandered back to their current residence after a quick bite in a dark alley and a few drinks at the local vamp bar. He had listened in on a few conversations to find out if there was any word on the new Slayer. No one seemed to be impressed with her. They were all annoyed that she had been called in their city. A Slayer, even a poor excuse for one, always meant trouble, but there wasn't a lot of fear. This was bad news for the girl. She would be the target of every lowlife vamp looking to make a name for himself.

He stepped through the large front doors and caught sight of Drusilla lounging on one of the couches. She was sipping blood daintily from a china tea cup. She looked relatively lucid for Dru. It put Spike on edge immediately.

"Back already from the dances, sweet William?" she asked him cheerily. He just arched a brow and leaned down to kiss her cheek. She smiled with a pleased expression on her face and arranged herself on the sofa to make room for him and patted the seat next to her. "Tell me all about your day."

Her moods were so varied. She could be innocent, sultry or violent all with in a matter of minutes. He guessed that she was currently going for sweet, so he matched his mood to suit hers and told her all about the new Slayer and his visit to the bar. She nodded and hummed, swaying only slightly. When he was finished, she looked at him expectantly and cleared her voice gently.

He rolled his eyes and sighed, "and how was your night, sweetheart?" He sighed, took the cup from her hand and took a small drink.

Her face lit up, "I had the most wondrous evening, William!" She clapped her tiny hands together and hopped in her seat a little. We're going to be a family!" The cup fell from his hands and shattered, blood spilling out on the hardwood floor. Without a glance at her or the mess spreading on the floor, he stood up and left the room.


	3. Chapter 3

Title: Begonias in the Belfry

Author: cherryarachnid

Feedback: Constructive, please.

Distribution: Contact me first, but I'll probably be okay with it.

Rating: T – may change later, but we'll see.

Spoilers: Probably a few.

Disclaimer: The main characters do not belong to me, obviously.

Author's Note: I have not read EVERYTHING that is canon Buffy, so my apologies if I've stepped on any continuity or story lines. If I have, let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Spike paced back and forth in the large bedroom. Every few circuits, he would stop and punch a new hole in the antique, floral wallpaper. Things had been going so smoothly. They had been by themselves for so long. Now she wanted to be a family again. Family for vampires was rarely a good thing. Family for him meant Darla and Angelus. They were the only "family" he had left. He added a few more holes to the ones already peppering the wall and hurled himself onto the giant, mahogany bed to sulk. He reached for a half-empty bottle of Jack on the night stand and took a swig.

If Drusilla wanted to be reunited with her _daddy_, there would be nothing he could do to stop it. There would be no reasoning with her. She wasn't capable of it. She would hum and speak in riddles and poems. She would coo and pet him and in the end, they would return to Angelus or Angelus would end up on their door step, ready to take over as head of the house.

Spike placed the bottle back on the night stand and reached for the television remote. He stopped on a Czech-translated version of some black and white family comedy. The sappy simplicity of it wasn't really his cup of tea. He preferred the melodramatic exploits of afternoon soaps. Watching the insipid television family, however, made his mind wander to the type of life he might have had as a human. Mostly, he tried not to think about it. He wasn't proud of the pathetic man he had been, but at his low points with Dru, he would sometimes wonder about what they might have been if they were both still living. Realistically, they would be nothing. He would have been too shy to ever speak to anyone with her exotic beauty and she would have been too pious to consider it.

Was it the vamp in him that twisted all of his feelings and his relationship with Dru? They were cruel to each other. Their love was something dark, but it _was_ love. If they were still human, would their life be sunny, bright and happy or would they still be just as hurtful? He scoffed and rolled his eyes. He honestly didn't know, but he suspected they would probably just be bloody dull.

He closed his eyes and after a while he felt the bed next to him dip. He rolled over and curled his arms around her waist and nuzzled his face into her orchid-scented hair. She murmured something quietly in his ear and kissed his temple and they slept. In the end, it didn't matter. Where ever she wanted to be was _his_ home.


	4. Chapter 4

Title: Begonias in the Belfry

Author: cherryarachnid

Feedback: Constructive, please.

Distribution: Contact me first, but I'll probably be okay with it.

Rating: T – may change later, but we'll see.

Spoilers: Probably a few.

Disclaimer: The main characters do not belong to me, obviously.

Author's Note: I have not read EVERYTHING that is canon Buffy, so my apologies if I've stepped on any continuity or story lines. If I have, let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Studying the new Slayer was turning out to be far more interesting than Spike had initially thought it would be. He had been observing her for the better part of the week and had assumed she would have been dead by now... or at the very least, he would have had to step in to delay her demise. That wasn't the case, however. She wasn't a forceful, aggressive fighter, but she was graceful and elegant. She would spin, jump and dance away from her foes just long enough to get the upper hand. They would underestimate her, as he did, and they would be ash.

There was definitely something _off_ about her, however. She wasn't unattractive. She was petite, with a pixie face and delicate features. Everything repellant about her seemed to be the result of a complete absence of personality and hygiene. She lacked any sort of self-confidence. She would rarely initiate an attack, instead, waiting to be approached by an over-zealous vampire. There was no presumptuous, witty dialogue - she rarely said a word. She would wander the street in her unflattering clothing, eyes toward the ground, hair cut too short and inelegantly chopped as though she had just hacked it away with shears without bothering to even glance at a mirror.

Every other Slayer he had come across was completely convinced of her abilities and absolutely secure in her sexuality. They were arrogant. They were _Chosen_. This girl was a mouse. How she had managed to make the cut was completely beyond Spike's comprehension. The Slayer well must be running fairly shallow these days.

He continued to follow her from the shadows as she skulked through the alleys and poorly lit side streets. She barely raised her eyes from the pavement - a sure way to walk herself right into an ambush. The thought had just entered his mind when a trio of vamps rounded the corner directly in front of her. She jumped back, twirling out of their grasp. She skipped and dipped and spun, confusing both Spike as well as the other vampires currently trying to get their fangs on her.

Suddenly, it dawned on him - she hadn't been dancing with the vampires, playing off of their moves like a fighter, she was actually _dancing_. He took a tentative step out of the shadows to get a closer look. She was a bloody brilliant dancer, but a terribly untrained fighter. Being light on her feet seemed to be the only thing that was keeping the tiny thing alive. Why hadn't her Watcher been teaching her? Nothing about this girl seemed to fit with what he had learned about Slayers... and he knew Slayers.

He watched as she dusted one of the vampires, then jumped to her left, but the other reached out and snatched her hand, with the stake still in it, and yanked it roughly behind her back, pushing down on her at the same time, forcing her to the ground. She was on her knees, facing away from both vampires, unable to move. She looked up and saw Spike standing there. He didn't see a single spark of fight in her eyes, only tired acceptance and relief. He rolled his eyes with a frustrated sigh and stepped completely out of the shadows in front of the three.

"Nice night, yeah?"


	5. Chapter 5

Title: Begonias in the Belfry

Author: cherryarachnid

Feedback: Constructive, please.

Distribution: Contact me first, but I'll probably be okay with it.

Rating: T – may change later, but we'll see.

Spoilers: Probably a few.

Disclaimer: The main characters do not belong to me, obviously.

Author's Note: I have not read EVERYTHING that is canon Buffy, so my apologies if I've stepped on any continuity or story lines. If I have, let me know and I'll see what I can do.

A flicker of recognition and confusion crossed her face as she raised her eyes to his. Maybe she hadn't been as unaware of his presence as he had thought. Interesting. Under the obvious neglect of herself, he could see where she would have been beautiful - a surprisingly common Slayer trait. The Powers That Be were a discriminating lot.

He slowly stepped toward the small group. The vampire not holding the girl took a step forward and gestured. He spoke Czech, but with a thick Italian accent. "This girl is ours and we don't share. Get your dinner somewhere else, _England_." The vampire stressed the last word with a sneer. Apparently, Spike wasn't the only one who had been doing some traveling, trying to find the new Slayer.

"Not so interested in a quick meal tonight," he said with a shrug, rushing toward the vamp, striking him in the jaw. Before he had time to react, Spike had already pulled a stake from his pocket and finished him. He wiped dust from his coat, shaking his head and glancing in the girl's direction, "bloody rookies." He wasn't sure if he was referring to the Slayer or the other vampires.

The girl had managed to free herself enough to gain the upper hand, twisting out of the large vampire's grasp. She had him dusted and was brushing dust and dirt from her pants before Spike could swagger over to help.

"You're a vampire," she said simply, not bothering to look up at him, still attentively wiping her hands.

"I am."

You've been following me."

"I have."

"You haven't tried to kill me. You just saved me from those vampires."

"Sharp as a tack, you are," he retorted with a slight chuckle.

She looked up at him then, more puzzlement in her eyes, followed by tired anger. "You should have let them kill me." She turned away from him and walked down the alley, leaving him scratching his bleached head.


End file.
